A Light From the Shadows

A LIGHT FROM THE SHADOWS

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A LIGHT from the

SHADOWS The Spiritual Heart of JRR Tolkien Fr Michael J Halsall

All booklets are published thanks to the generosity of the supporters of the Catholic Truth Society

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CONTENTS

Introduction............................................................................... 9 1. A Mythology for England: Creating Worlds and their Peoples..................................................................... 23 2. Good and Evil in a Fallen World....................................... 39 3. Lives of Virtue and Heroism in Tolkien’s Characters..... 67 4. ‘And in the end’…Life Beyond the Grey Havens.......... 103 5. Galadriel, Mary and the Light of Salvation.................... 140 Bibliography........................................................................... 156 Recommended Further Reading......................................... 158

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All through the twilight of the Second Age the Shadow is growing in the East of Middle-earth, spreading its sway more and more over Men. (Humphrey Carpenter, (Ed) The Letters of JRR Tolkien, p151)

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Introduction

‘I

n a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit’. So begin the first published Middle-earth writings of JRR Tolkien: a literary phenomenon which has become a multi-million pound/dollar industry. Tolkien’s works have become a major influence in the development of the fantasy genre since the mid-late 20th century. However, for an increasing number of readers, Tolkien’s works are not simply works of fantasy and/or fiction. They contain strong moral and religious overtones, which emanate from his religious, as well as his academic background. As with Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels, Tolkien’s ‘imaginary world’ (in the sense that is read by the many) – with its little people – is too often misunderstood at the deeper level, but is now becoming the subject of serious academic study by increasing numbers of reputable scholars, chiefly because its themes of Creation and Fall; the interpenetration of good and evil; the relationship between humanity and God, are universal themes. Tolkien’s genuine ambition was to create a ‘mythology for England’ using ancient literary sources, devices and idioms.1

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Humphrey Carpenter, (ed.) The Letters of JRR Tolkien, pp144-145

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The sources of, and influences on, Tolkien’s works are complex and represent the subject of much debate and speculation. Many biographers and commentators rightly highlight his interest in north European legend and lore; his experiences in the First World War; his love of the countryside, and his fear and loathing of industrialisation and modernism. However, Humphrey Carpenter remarks that, ‘no account of the external events of Tolkien’s life can provide more than a superficial explanation of the origins of his mythology’.2 What is often understated is his Christian faith and knowledge of it, and how this has contributed to the Middle-earth writings. We know for certain that Tolkien was an English Roman Catholic, whose Christian piety was learned and fostered before the sweeping reforms of the Second Vatican Council in the mid-late 1960s. Even the term ‘Roman Catholic’ would not be a transferable phrase in the currency of most contemporary religious thought. For most of his adult life, his Catholicism was also lived out in the rarefied environs of Oxford – itself a society very different from the day-to-day aspirations of the general populace. His faith was formed under the joint influences of his mother in his youth, and at the Birmingham (Newman) Oratory.

In both the UK and the USA, Tolkien’s literary merits have been, and continue to remain the subject of very public debate. In 1996 a poll of 26,000 readers by Waterstone’s 2

Humphrey Carpenter, JRR Tolkien: A Biography, p98

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bookstore crowned The Lord of the Rings ‘Book of the Century’. In W: The Waterstone’s Magazine, Germaine Greer expressed her displeasure at the poll results: Ever since I arrived at Cambridge as a student in 1964 and encountered a tribe of full-grown women wearing puffed sleeves, clutching teddies and babbling excitedly about the doings of hobbits, it has been my nightmare that Tolkien would turn out to be the most influential writer of the 20th century. The bad dream has materialised.3 Neither Orwell’s 1984 nor Animal Farm (which occupied second and third place respectively), could be described as works of literary ‘realism’. Yet we accept both as deeply serious and political responses to Orwell’s experiences of totalitarianism and fascism. Tolkien repeatedly claimed that he never stooped to allegory in his writings, but he did not deny ‘applicability’.

I dislike allegory in all its manifestations, and always have done so…I much prefer history, true or feigned, with its varied applicability to the thought and experience of readers. I think that many confuse ‘applicability’ with ‘allegory’; but the one resides in the freedom of the reader, and the other in the purposed domination of the author.4

3 Germaine Greer, W: The Waterstone’s Magazine: The Book of the Century (Winter/Spring 1997), pp2-9 4 The Foreword to LOTR states this clearly, p9

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Similarly, in a letter dated 11 September 1957 he reiterates this point, making clear the philosophical and theological trajectory of his project: ‘But I should say, if asked, the tale is not really about Power and Dominion…it is about Death and the desire for deathlessness’.5 The extent to which he was successful in avoiding allegory is debatable, as many read into his works a commentary of 20th century dislocation and cultural trauma. Thus, The Lord of the Rings can be read as his response to modernity, to the world of catastrophic wars, terrible weapons, and industrialisation that Tolkien felt was destroying his beloved rural, Edwardian England.6 The Lord of the Rings did more than become a popular book and a cause célèbre for hippiedom: it renewed a current of enchantment and metaphysical delight in children and adult literature that has also attracted an academic interest in English literature and Medieval Studies, and philosophy.

Why Another Book on Tolkien, and Who is it For? I have been reading Tolkien for as long as I can remember, from at least eight or nine years of age when, on a wet Lancashire afternoon, our teacher – Miss Poole – passed around a class set of The Hobbit, which we read around the room for the remainder of the school day, and an afternoon each week thereafter. From the opening page I was hooked!

Letters, pp261-262 This idyll is represented in LOTR by the hobbits’ peaceful, if parochial, homeland of ‘the Shire’ 5 6

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I first read The Lord of the Rings as an Engineering undergraduate, but I never read out of these texts anything more profound than a ‘ripping yarn’: a type of Famous Five or Secret Seven ‘boys own’ quest for children and grown-ups, like so many other books which my generation read. I was brought up as a Christian in the Church of England, but I had neither the ‘spiritual sense’ nor ‘literary tools’ which drew me into a deeper and profound reading of the texts.

In a very real sense, therefore, this book is written for people such as myself. I am assuming that, because you have purchased or are reading this book, that you have read some of Tolkien’s works.

I am not a ‘biographer’, and this book is not a biography: others have researched and told the story of JRR Tolkien from a variety of perspectives much better than I ever could.

This book is more of a ‘commentary’ than a biography, even though it contains biographical material. It seeks to provide a brief but tempting introduction into a distinctly Catholic understanding and appreciation of the life and writings of Tolkien, from both the perspectives of theology and philosophy. If, as the reader, you are neither a theologian nor philosopher, nor a Catholic, then please don’t be disheartened. This short book is written with two ambitions at the outset: first, to place Tolkien within his own life-setting, without which it is impossible to fully understand his Middle-earth ‘project’, nor the man himself.

Second, I hope that the reader will return to Tolkien’s works 13

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with a fresh and renewed energy and understanding of his precious narratives. No author writes in a vacuum: Tolkien wrote his ‘mythology for England’ and other texts, resulting from a researched and lively engagement with the literary, philosophical, and theological framework of his professional life and acquired Catholic faith, alongside his evolving life’s experience. Why he wrote, and how he did so was endemic within his own experience and skills as a ‘medievalist’, a British Army Officer, a husband and father, and a religious convert, who took his faith and its underpinnings seriously.

I would contest that Tolkien did not write fantasy as we might commonly understand the term: Tolkien wrote about things that are real, meaningful, and still have a relevance for our own day.

It is hoped also that this short monograph may also help ‘iron out the wrinkles’ from the many misunderstandings of Tolkien’s works, and further inspire people to re-read them in their Catholic and Medieval context. Many people will have enjoyed their first taste of Tolkien’s mythology via film and radio. The success of Peter Jackson’s two trilogies on film has popularised Tolkien’s fantasy writings, but they could not plumb the depths of their relevance for Catholic Christians today. Jackson’s films were written and produced for an audience very different from the one for which Tolkien wrote. In my view, by far the best interpretation is the 1981 BBC radio dramatisation of The Lord of the Rings (13 hours), with its 1968 counterpart of The Hobbit 14

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(3 hours 33 minutes). They are very close to the original texts, include no director-led characters, and have little abridgement and adornment.

As a result of the many manuscripts published posthumously by his son Christopher, and some as yet unpublished, but available to a select few researchers, we have learnt to understand much more about his work and theological vision. I share much of Tolkien’s religious, theological, and philosophical sympathies: being entirely English, a convert to Catholicism, small ‘c’ conservative, and with a certain antipathy towards so-called ‘progress’ and innovation. I have spent many decades reading Tolkien, and during the past ten years engaged in sustained academic study of his works, alongside the development of theology and philosophy which he would have known, as well as investigating the sources of his own works – both literary and academic. This short guided tour through Tolkien’s life and works will hopefully help the reader to transcend the shallow interpretations and representations of our contemporary society and the media: his life of virtue, heroism, and sustained dedication to scholarship speak to us of the lives that combine English character with a rigorous creativity. Given the extent of his output – both in life and death – I have chosen to focus almost entirely on his Lord of the Rings trilogy, as they are his most popular works by far.

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Charting the Journey I have broken down this ‘journey’ into five parts which, when taking a broad reading of Tolkien’s writings, draw out several key themes within his own project: Chapter 1 A Mythology for England: Creating Worlds and their Peoples – develops his intention, arising out of his young life and its attendant traumas. How we seek to re-enchant the world’s narratives is assumed into his evolving expression of this world through the eyes of a medievalist and fantasy writer. As such, whilst we read of fictitious characters and places, they are never fully detached from our own world and experience: even the names are taken from his own geographical and literary sphere.

Chapter 2 Good and Evil in a Fallen World – arrives at the crux of Tolkien’s project. Whilst he avoids the overt use of religious themes and allegories, he nevertheless addresses this key theme from within the very heart of the world’s struggles: what is evil? How do we encounter its power over us? How do we begin the struggle for beauty, truth, and goodness in the face of life’s pain and misfortune? How can we address injustice, oppression, and struggles for power?

Chapter 3 Lives of Virtue and Heroism in Tolkien’s Characters – what it means to be good, in relation to the origin of all things 17

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– God, and how it is expressed in heroic lives, can lead us to unfathomable bravery and self-sacrifice. Even in Tolkien’s secondary characters, we are awed by their relentless sense of duty and loyalty, even if their willingness to enter the struggle is based on a certain sense of feudal naivety.

Chapter 4 ‘And in the end’…Life Beyond the Grey Havens – attempts to take us beyond the struggle for life’s good ambitions, to the fulfilment and reconciliation of all things. What signifies death, and what constitutes it? Is death a curse, a final reckoning, or a joyful release after a life well lived? What does an afterlife mean for Tolkien’s creatures and characters?

Chapter 5 Galadriel, Mary and the Light of Salvation – draws many of these strands together, focusing on Tolkien’s love of Our Lady, and how the female characters in The Lord of the Rings represent ‘types’ of the Blessed Virgin Mary. As we shall see, the links are less than obvious, and need teasing out, given Tolkien’s reticence to betray a direct analogical portrayal of the Gospel.

My sources for this book arise out of my own research in the published and unpublished manuscripts of JRR Tolkien, and my US publication Creation and Beauty in Tolkien’s Catholic Vison. The various biographies of Tolkien amongst his peers, including Holly Ordway’s recent Tolkien’s Faith: A Spiritual Biography and John Garth’s Tolkien and the Great 18

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War have been invaluable, alongside Humphrey Carpenter’s own JRR Tolkien: A Biography and edited collection of Letters. In a book this size it is impossible to do full justice to the subject, and I include further reading in an Appendix.

And finally, the title for this book is taken from Gandalf ’s letter to Frodo, delivered to the Prancing Pony inn. The now famous poem beginning, ‘All that is gold does not glitter’ is a prophecy of the returning King – Aragorn. It contains the line, ‘A light from the shadows shall spring’, and is the constant thread which runs through this book. Light, its absence and shadow, are themes which Tolkien weaves with great skill, and the resolution of the Trilogy promises a new dawn of the world – the world of Men. It is not an allegory of the Incarnation or Resurrection of Jesus – as some have thought – but neither can it be devoid of Messianic meaning: tragedy and triumph exist ‘cheek by jowl’ amidst the changes and chances of Tolkien’s characters.

Tolkien’s works are uniquely inspiring amongst those who share his faith, and those who do not. They inspire because he speaks the truth about the world, even if we might not fully understand the context and background of his narrative. My intention is to help remove those dual barriers, such that readers may come to that Truth for which he lived, wrote, and in which he died.

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I was from early days grieved by the poverty of my own beloved country: it had no stories of its own…nothing English…But once upon a time I had a mind to make a body of more or less connected legend…which I could dedicate simply to England.

(Letters, pp144-145)

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1.

A Mythology for England: Creating Worlds and their Peoples

T

he late Fr Ian Ker, writing on the Catholic revival in English literature, dates this movement from 1845 to 1961. Interestingly, he neither includes nor mentions JRR Tolkien. This appears to be at first sight a strange omission, as this is precisely the period in which Tolkien was born, raised, and worked. Ker brings our attention to the argument of (now) St John Henry Newman, that English literature in the post-Reformation context is essentially protestant literature: ‘a Catholic literature is simply an impossibility in the context of English culture’.7 Newman in his 1873 book The Idea of a University is unduly pessimistic in this respect, yet he is able to assert that the most illustrious amongst English writers has so little of a Protestant about him that Catholics have been able, without extravagance, to claim him as their own, and that enemies to our creed have allowed that he is only

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Ian Ker, The Catholic Revival in English Literature, 1845-1961, p1

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not a Catholic, because, and as far as, his time forbade it.

(JH Newman, Idea of a University, Part 2, Section 3.3.5) Tolkien was certainly aware of the social pressures upon those who converted to Catholicism, and he walked in the shoes of Newman and many others who felt the pinch of social disapprobation. Prior to the freedoms for Catholics introduced during the Victorian era, then Catholic literature up to the birth of Tolkien was fairly scant. It might be fair to say that Tolkien – like Grahame Greene – did not see himself as a ‘Catholic writer’, but simply a writer who was Catholic.

He was neither an ‘apologist’, like his friend CS Lewis, and did not write on obvious Christian or Catholic themes – perhaps except for two poems on Mary. In his own words: I have not been nourished by English Literature, in which I do not suppose I am better read than you; for the simple reason that I have never found much there to rest my heart… Also being a philologist, getting a large part of my aesthetic pleasure that I am capable of from the form of words, I have always best enjoyed things in a foreign language, or one so remote as to feel like it (such as Anglo-Saxon). (Letters, pp172, 214) Such is Tolkien’s cultural detachment from the literature of his own land and associated cultural aspiration. Tolkien showed great independence and originality in his writing, caring little for the contemporary world around him. In a letter dated some time in October 1971 he was to claim that 24

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